The Oldest Guitars and What They'll Cost You To Buy

Dec 2, 2017

A 3,300-year-old stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation showing people playing an instrument that has a strong resemblance to the guitar, indicating a possible Babylonian origin for the guitar.

At least two instruments called “guitars” were in use in Spain by 1200: the guitarra latina (Latin guitar) and the so-called guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar). The guitarra morisca had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, and several sound holes. The guitarra Latina had a single sound hole and a narrower neck.

The term “vintage guitar” is rather vague – as many of our members rightly point out. I would consider these early guitars as antiques rather than vintage pieces, although to some extent it’s just semantics.

That said, our database of 10,000 guitars also holds a number of models that pre-date the 20th Century, and as such, I would also consider to be antiques.

In this post, I take a look at the oldest guitars in our database and what they’re currently worth.